She watched a couple cross the lot in front of her, holding hands as long as they could until they had to part and go to their separate cars, and she wondered about them. A married couple or boyfriend and girlfriend meeting for lunch and now headed back to work? Or something more secretive? An affair, perhaps. Something hidden and exciting because of that covertness. She’d been that girl once upon a time.
With a sigh, she shifted her car into drive and headed back to theoffice. As she pulled out onto the street, her phone rang and the screen in the dash showed Amanda’s name. With a sigh, she hit the decline button and kept on driving, her brain thinking about cardboard boxes, a clean slate, beef stew, and finally blocking Amanda’s number.
Not necessarily in that order.
Chapter Two
Had she ever been this angry before?
Jenna felt like every organ inside her body was literally shaking. Quaking with rage.
“Who is this woman anyway?” she asked the empty bookshop. “Who? And what is her beef with romance?” A scoff, a snort. “Well, I mean we know what her beef is: She probably never had any romance. Probably never had anybody bring her flowers or candy or sweep her off her feet or make her feel like the sexiest, most desirable creature on the planet.” She glanced at the portrait of Nora Roberts on the wall across from the counter. Beneath it was one simple line:You can’t have a life without love.“I mean, to be fair, I haven’t had a lot of that stuff either, but I’m not bitter about it like this chick clearly is.”
Shane came up from the back of the store carrying a box of books. “Are you bitching to Nora again?”
Jenna sighed. “Only because I’ve already caused your ears to bleed and I wanted to leave you at least a little bit of your hearing to take home with you in case one of your kids has something important to say when you pick them up from school.”
“You are a selfless woman.”
“It’s true.”
“Does Queen Nora have any advice for you?” Shane set the box down behind the counter and began entering the books’ ISBN numbers into the computer.
“You know how she likes to think about stuff for a while before she offers a solution.”
“Mm-hmm.” He tried to hide his grin.
“You stop that,” she said, pushing at his arm.
“Stop what?” Shane widened his eyes almost comically, Mr. Innocent.
“Mocking me.” She feigned a pout as she arranged more of the new bookmarks in a little holder on the counter.
“I would never mock you. I just think it’s adorable how pissed off you are about the blog of this one woman.” He lifted one shoulder in a half shrug.
“She trashed my shop!”
“I know. That wasn’t cool. But—”
“Between the Linesis a book blog that has almost thirty thousand followers. That’s thirty thousand people who’ve read that what I sell here is ‘sappy fluff.’ ” She made the air quotes with her fingers.
Shane stopped what he was doing and stared over at the shelves for a beat before saying, “I mean, some of what we sellisexactly that…” He met her gaze. “Intentionally so. That’s what some people want, right?”
Jenna’s lips trilled as she blew out a defeated breath. “Sometimes, yes. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.” She took a moment, calmed down a bit, but then remembered another line, and her ire ratcheted right back up again. She held up a finger to Shane and said, “She also said—and I quote—that the romance genre ‘peddles unattainable dreams to the sad and lonely.’ And how my ‘hearts and flowers décor only perpetuates the lack of reality around the genre itself.’ I mean, the nerve of that woman!”
Shane stopped what he was doing to look at her for a moment. “Did you memorize the whole blog?”
She blinked at him with a frown. “I might’ve read it a few times.” A beat went by before she woke her phone up and showed him the blog page, which she had bookmarked. “See?” She stabbed the screen with her finger. “See what she says?”
“Wait.” Shane reached over and poked his own finger at the screen, scrolling back until he got to the beginning of the blog with the photo of the blogger. He pinched his finger and thumb together and enlarged it. “Oh, I remember her. She came in looking for a thriller.” He went back to his box of books. “She was really pretty.”
Jenna groaned. “So what if she was pr-—” She squinted at the photo, then usedherthumb and forefinger to enlarge it more. A simpleheadshot, this Sawyer Hall—what kind of name was that anyway? sounded like a dorm on a college campus—was brunette, her dark hair shiny. Her eyes were a soft blue behind black-rimmed glasses and— “Oh my God.”
“What?”
“I ran into her on the street.”
Shane tipped his head. “What?”
